Thursday, August 17th, 2006...9:21 pm
Book ‘em
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a meme. Let’s face it, it’s been a while since I’ve done a bloody post. But the Duck has pinged me so here goes:
1. One book you have read more than once
I finished The Handmaid’s Tale a couple of days ago. I’ve been reading quite a lot about women in the central Asian countries lately – mainly Iran and Afghanistan – and I had a really strong urge to read it again. Far out that’s a good book (and one that others doing this meme have mentioned already).
2. One book you would want on a desert island
Impractically, Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion. More usefully for boredom, read the Buddhists. I’d take A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield.
3. One book that made you laugh
Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theatre. I laughed like a drain, particularly at Mickey Sabbath’s imagined obituary “DID NOTHING FOR ISRAEL!”. Heh.
Funnily enough, de Sade’s Justine also made me laugh, and it made my naughty girlfriends laugh too. If I pick up the phone and there’s a voice saying “The extreme heat and constriction of your anus is driving me wild.” I know it’s one of two people. It’s stayed funny for about fifteen years. Well, to me at least. Last time I did it was … this afternoon.
4. One book that made you cry
If I am in a watery mood, the phone book can make me cry. That said, I find non fiction more upsetting than fiction. We Are Iran, a book about Iranian bloggers by Nasrin Alavi made me cry. I didn’t know that in the early days of the revolution the authorities might stop a woman on the street if she was wearing lipstick and slice her lips with razor blades. And a lot worse.
5. One book you wish you had written
I wish I had written The Vivisector, then I could impress all of my blog friends with my matchless insights at our book group.
6. One book you wish had never been written
I picked up (aka “caught”) a couple of bookcrossing.com books a couple of weeks ago. I was very excited. The badness of these books is beyond belief. I’m on a promise to Georg to blog about the psychoanalytical biography of Margaret Thatcher (“Chapter 4: On the pot”), so more about that later. Terrible as that book is, it will at least provide a post. The other one I found is Stanley Morgan’s Sky-jacked, and it would test anyone’s commitment to the idea that books should never be burned.
7. One book you are currently reading
I’m reading The Vivisector, for the Patrick White Reading Group. I started early out of fear of being Overtaken By Events, and because the things that bubble to the surface after a little while are often more interesting than first impressions. I’m enjoying it a great deal.
8. One book you have been meaning to read
John Dos Passos’ USA has been staring off the shelf at me for years now. Hello there! One day.
9. One Book That Changed Your Life
You know, I’m not really a dropped out of the sky, life changing revelation type person. I plod along, working out something here, getting some good advice there – always watching, watching. There’s no one book that has “changed my life”, but all the thousands of books I’ve read have helped shape me. I’ll be playing frickin’ kumbaya in a minute at this rate, won’t I?
I’m going to tag Mick, because he tagged me a little while ago for a meme I had already done.
20 Comments
August 17th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Eff me. Am I the only pinko lefto femi-nazi who DIDN’T enjoy The Handmaid’s Tale? I had a big discussion at work the other day about it and found myself wanting to crawl under the desk after I said “F**k I hated that book”. I could see myself declining in other people’s estimation before my eyes. Now I must get back to reading The Vivisector…
August 17th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
And I’m waiting for that Thatcher post BTW. You’ve got me all intrigued now.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
But why, Georg?
And I keep lookin’ at that book and shuddering. Wedding on this weekend (second weekend in a row) but I’ll try and do it soon.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
I don’t know. Maybe it was just the fact that I had to read it at Uni so it wasn’t a choice. Or maybe because it made me so depressed and still haunts me. That’s probably a sign of a good book, one that I think about ten years later…
August 18th, 2006 at 12:07 am
You could always try reading it again …
August 18th, 2006 at 3:52 am
Be careful what you say about ducks!
August 18th, 2006 at 3:58 am
In case that’s a bit obscure I was referring to the first para of the post.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:55 am
This is an interesting post, but compared to your last post it does not have the same…hmmm…well, put it this way…I am still pondering over that last one, and still following those links and reading and reading and re-reading. Like I say, I’ve led a sheltered life.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
But did you see about the Ducks, ThirdCat?
Ron don’t you think it’s odd they picked “ducks” as the masculine form of “chickens”? It’s like that weird thing where some kids (and I think some grown-ups, if they admitted it) think cats are the girl ones and dogs are the boy ones.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
There are boy cats?
August 18th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Basil is a girl cat, since he left it up to me to decide, and I chose girl.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
But that’s not what I meant to say. I meant to say that some Americans are doing a stage show of Mansfield Park crossed with Justine. I guess they had you in mind, Zoe.
Let me find the link….here it is http://performancelab115.org/asmallhole.php
August 18th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
At last; new ground broken in that oft-neglected sub-genre, the DomRomCom.
And they say modern art is morally bankrupt tripe. Palestines.
August 19th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Funnily enough, de Sade’s Justine also made me laugh, and it made my naughty girlfriends laugh too. If I pick up the phone and there’s a voice saying “The extreme heat and constriction of your anus is driving me wild.” I know it’s one of two people. It’s stayed funny for about fifteen years
Reminds me of an oh-so-so scandalous movie tht came out a few years ago: Romance, I think – or something like that – anyway, SO and I still dissolve into laughter with “I am a VOID, a PIT….”
It’s hard to write erotica so people don’t crack up, I reckon.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:55 am
Mansfield Park. Crossed with Justine.
*removes jaw from floor*
*commences banging head on table*
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:42 am
Oh stop it, I’m at work. Oh I forgot — where I am there’s no one that can hear me snort. But it’s embarrassing nonetheless.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:45 am
So how about that trolling, huh?
August 28th, 2006 at 1:53 am
I’ve yet to transfer over the last post up at the blogger site; and yet to receive confirmation my special treat gravatar has been rated.
I don’t know where your jaunty little beret’s gone either, so it’s a burqa for you for the time being.
August 28th, 2006 at 3:21 am
The beret is still around, Z. The Norwegian folkloric monster/sprite image, however, has made no appearance. C’mon gravatars.com, pull the finger ‘aht.
August 28th, 2006 at 3:25 am
Yeah!! I sent it in Saturday afternoon, but it’s still not rated. I reckon the system might be a lot bloody faster if they didn’t get rated but you could block nasty ones if they made an appearance.
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